Former Chinese vice president Rong Yiren (榮毅仁), a onetime textile magnate who joined the communist government and played a key role in launching economic reforms, earning the nickname "Red Capitalist," has died at age 89, the government announced yesterday.
Rong died on Wednesday night in Beijing of illness, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It didn't give any other details.
Rong was a wealthy textile magnate who stayed in China after the 1949 revolution and handed over his fortune to the communists.
He was persecuted during the ultraleftist 1966-76 Cultural Revolution but later rehabilitated when then-supreme leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) invited him in 1978 to help launch economic reforms. Deng called Rong his "Red Capitalist."
Rong created the China International Trust and Investment Corp, or CITIC, which became the main vehicle for the communist leadership's capitalist-style investments.
Rong was named vice president in 1993, becoming China's highest-ranking noncommunist official. He left the post in 1998.
In 2000, the US business magazine Forbes ranked Rong as China's richest businessman, with a fortune estimated at US$1.9 billion in CITIC shares.
His son, Larry Yung, also known as Rong Zhijian (榮智健), is chairman of CITIC's Hong Kong arm, Citic Pacific Ltd, and has a fortune estimated at US$1 billion.
No information about other survivors or funeral plans was immediately released.
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
RSS